


Sverdlov Square

by cualacino



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Anal Sex, Blink and you'll miss it RusAme, M/M, Post-War, References to Shakespeare, Resentment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-14 22:12:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7192901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cualacino/pseuds/cualacino
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>China visits Moscow for Stalin's birthday celebration as dissatisfaction with Sino-Soviet relations grows. As a matter of course, he and Russia are encouraged to strengthen ties.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sverdlov Square

Flowers, heaped in mounds like bushels from some foreign harvest, line the main stage, but the smell in the theater is overwhelmingly of sweat and musty velvet. The two of them – China, Russia – sit in the corner of one of the boxes. It's for sake of privacy, China knows, but it seems like he is being tucked away, purposefully out of sight. This entire visit comes off like a mild inconvenience for Russia. The Chairman certainly seems to think so. China can feel a sort of frustrated humiliation rising in himself, and he's done his best to stifle it, but with his leader now espousing Stalin as some deity of liberation, the shame is there, solid in his chest. Russia beams beside him.

* * *

China watches his palms, red from applause, turn pink and white under the tap. He rolls back his sleeves, turning the cuffs over on themselves, and smooths water up his forearms. He doesn't like the way he looks in these lights – sickly, sallow, haggard. Bowing his head, he washes his face.

The door to the bathroom creaks, scrapes over title, and when he straightens, Russia is there, closing it gently.

"You left."

China tears a length of paper towel out of the dispenser, balls it, and briskly scrubs his arms.

"It was hot in the theater." He presses the towel to his face. The smell of the warm, damp paper fills his nose and throat, and he peels it off. "I wanted to refresh myself."

Russia nods slowly, picking his way across the floor. His suit is dark, heavy, and a little too small for him. The toes and ankles of his shoes are scuffed, worn from wear.

"It was a wonderful celebration," China offers.

Honest pleasure briefly startles over Russia's face, but his voice is dull, consciously unchallenging when he speaks. "Our car is waiting."

"'Our?'" China echoes, a little incredulous and a little offended. He unrolls his sleeves and pinches his cufflinks in place. "You don't want to be subtle, then."

"It is a demonstration of the fraternity and goodwill between our people." China stares at him, coldly amused. Russia steps to the side and gestures to the door. "Please," he says, low. "Don't make this take any longer than it has to."

China pulls on his jacket. "Of course." When he approaches, Russia opens the door and falls into step behind. He marches China down the hall, out into the foyer, smiling at the diplomats and aides as the two of them merge into the crowd. A few people paw at their wrists to grasp a brief handshake and introduction. One of China's aides takes him by the elbow as soon as he's crossed through the Bolshoi's doors, though, and murmurs, "Please do your best to remember yourself tonight," in quiet, crisp Mandarin.

China stares at the man's greasy face, his mocking eyes, until he can manage, "Certainly," his voice a careful kind of bitter.

"Wang tóngzhì," Russia calls, and China is released, or tossed away. He finds his footing, and moves into the car idling at the edge of the sidewalk. There's a camera flash before Russia's bulk blots out the world. He shuts the door, and that slap of rubber and metal mutes all sound save the thundering engine. The driver pulls away from the curb; Sverdlov Square slides past the windows and is gone.

Russia starts digging in his pockets, casually at first, then with some desperation. He finds a cigarette case and a lighter, finally, and doesn't offer either to China. Like everything else between them, it's not a snub, just absent-minded neglect.

Outside, the night is black and expansive. It presses against the windows of the car like bubbling asphalt. Even with the snow, Moscow isn't nearly as pretty as Russia had said it would be. It's a quiet, old city, somehow still lacking the self-respect and dignity that usually come with silence and age. China turns from the window, looks around the car without interest, and focuses on Russia. His eyes are vacant, his hands move lifelessly through the motions of smoking. China notices the effeminate, impatient way Russia flicks the ash off his cigarette, the slight tremor in his index and middle fingers. They're small idiosyncrasies – slight, harmless flaws that China thinks he might find attractive, or convince himself to find attractive.

All China wants to do is dredge up Taiwan and the treaty, berate Russia for being so terrified of America, cowering behind his borders. Say what you will about Trotsky – not that Russia dared to say much of anything – but he understood the importance, the _necessity_ of international communism. Stalin's sudden tentativeness seems equal parts inexplicable and insulting. The two nations are allies, after all; a little aid is to be expected.

But every cord in Russia's body is strained, his face an inexpressive grimace – the man is practically pressed against the door. He looks out at the street hungrily. China spares him. This night is little more than one drawn-out metaphor. Why belabor the point?

Making himself comfortable on the black leather seat, China says, "It's a beautiful theater, Russia."

Gray smoke seeps out of Russia's mouth, his nose, and he leans back. "It is certainly a fitting location."

Keeping his voice light, even, China leans in. "I don't understand."

"Most recently, I saw Profokiev's _Romeo and Juliet_. Which is an excellent production, despite the difficulties it had getting to the stage…"

It takes China a moment to place the title, and some disdain stirs in him at the comparison. At length, he says, "I'm sure."

"A dance and a drama in one work. I think it's fitting company for tonight's show of friendship." 

"One might also say compare the two as romances, if one wanted to be polite."

"One could," Russia mocks.

"Diplomacy. Comradeship. Political reconciliation after strife," China adds.

"After sacrifices." Russia looks at him. "I have always liked _Hamlet_ better."

This title comes more easily, but the connection escapes him. Russia seems to see China's confusion and continues leisurely, "The world-weary prince, the besought country."

A silence expands between them, filled only by the sound of the tires on the road. Too late, only a moment after the quiet has become uncomfortable, China puts his hand on Russia's thigh. Russia looks down confused, as if China's gentle grip is some alien sensation. Keeping his voice even, China says in simple Mandarin, "I hope tonight I can lighten your weariness."

The faint discomfort and disgust on Russia's face mirror what China is desperately keeping from his own expression.

* * *

In the hotel room, they shoulder off their coats casually, make their way to the wide, crisp bed. While Russia's clothes are too small for him, the jacket too tight across his emaciated shoulders, China's are too large. Despite what he was told, he's sure the jacket and slacks are from another, taller man. So many of his own were lost in the war. It's a muted gray, new enough, but the cuffs hang too low on his hands, the lapels yawn around his neck. The black leather belt he drops on the floor has an added notch – he thinned down after war and rationing – and holds the too-wide trousers on his hips.

China lies down first; he’s not in the mood to be fucked, but he wants to abridge this, not take advantage. Russia is half-hard – only just – when he arranges himself on top, his hands on China’s shoulders. He pushes down, pressing China into the mattress, his mouth moving slowly, mechanically though the kiss. China lets Russia’s knee fit between his legs and starts unbuttoning Russia's shirt, stroking the skin above the undershirt’s collar as he goes. He pauses and reaches to unloop the scarf, but Russia grabs his wrist and tears it away. China begins to protest, but Russia cuts him short with a simple, "No." 

Neither of them have the patience for posturing. China remembers briefly that aide saying something about him acting as the man for the evening – "despite the obvious difficulties." Smiling and smarmy. 

"Fine," he says. He lets his hand go limp in Russia’s fingers, and is released. Russia unwinds the scarf himself, setting it aside on the nightstand with care. There would be more, he thinks, but Russia’s cock is starting to strain, so he goes for Russia’s belt, button, and zip.

By the time preparation in all its brevity and vague clinicalness is done with, China is feeling some spark of arousal. Joyless sex is nothing more than that, but being hard alleviates things: the tedium, the mild shame, the prickles of disgust. With a groan, Russia pushes in impatiently. It takes some maneuvering to get Russia’s cock to move just right, and aside from a slight curl of his mouth – which could just be another tick of arousal – Russia seems uncaring.

Their governments, their leaders are always so eager to turn sex into something more than it is. China, like most of his millions of citizens, doesn't care too much about Russia refusing to give assistance. The events of this century – the horrors and the wonders – flit by him. What he does feel is the very real insult of how he's been treated since arriving in Moscow, and he resents Russia and his leader for dismissing and patronizing the Chinese diplomatic mission by turns. And so, while he feels the blows to his self-respect, he doesn't assign the same significance to this night as that sneering aide.

Humans, for all the brevity of their lives, seem to prefer to think in swathes, propping up overarching ideologies that will outlive and outlast them. Still, China understands the impulse to politicize sex. Or, rather, to sexualize politics. It's all there in the language. The ideas of control, power, and victory transfer over easily: fertile soil, the rape of a city, invading the heartland, penetrating the borders – the clichés have been worn thin. Nations themselves once thought similarly, but they've moved on for the most part, albeit recently. Those illusions are hard to maintain when one watches the years roll past like unlit film spinning on a projector. So they follow along, the Nations, going through the motions, reciting the lines for people and causes they themselves will inevitably watch die away and fold into history.

Looping his arms around Russia’s neck, he thinks a little desperately for something to hurry this along. It’s more a pastime than anything else, to idle away Russia’s soft, deep breaths. He toys with bringing up America, but lets the urge pass. The present is pitted enough without dragging history into it. Like a well-shelled battlefield, there are plenty of places to trip up, plenty of mire to stick in.

He raises his head to kiss Russia, has to wait a moment for the man's eyes to open, and even then – bleary with drink and some lingering, misplaced resentment – it takes a while for Russia to lean down to him. His tongue moves lazily, his mouth stays tight, and China thinks that this is taking a while longer than he'd told himself it would.

It's no effort to break away, but as soon as he starts moving off, around the corner of Russia's jaw, burying his nose in the pink fold of his neck, Russia jerks away, almost rocking back onto his heels. His hands are tight around China's upper arms.

"Don't." 

China fixes a smile. "I am just trying to move things along –"

"There is no need to talk."

"Just because your cock is in me, that doesn't make me your wife," he says, each word starched with emphasis. He hates English, hates having to speak it with Russia and hates Russia's thudding, dull accent more, but it is useful for things like this. Biting words, bitterness.

Russia is unimpressed. He shifts, adjusting his weight on the mattress, and his eyes move somewhere else, beyond the hotel room. China drops his head back and waits. 

And even in his nearly infinite patience, made strong by his considerable years, he waits longer than he feels he has too. He looks at Russia and sees some frustration there, those wide, pale hips moving more erratically. The thick fingers around his biceps cinch, and China realizes that this is not the quick, diplomatic fucking he expected. Only a few hours ago they were celebrating the 70th year of Russia's favorite Georgian, but driving back to the hotel, China had still expected a little more potency. 

Whatever the reason for Russia's delay, it leaves a sour taste in everyone's mouth if someone doesn't finish. Pointless as this may be – pointless as it is – orgasm at least implies something was accomplished.

He pets Russia's sides – contact, Russia likes contact, China remembers. Russia huffs, which is promising. There's no desire in Russia to touch him, though, and this is nothing if not a cooperative effort, so China closes his eyes and arches, makes himself a little more inviting.

"Russia," he says, delicately. "Oh, _Russia_ –"

It startles him a little, like the sudden feeling of China's hands on his ribs, but Russia presses on, breath coming stiffly.

China licks his lips, blunts his pride a little: " _Please._ "

Maybe supplication sets off the incidental sadism in him, maybe it's only the feeling of being wanted – something makes Russia drops to his elbows, his head in line with China's. A thick hand comes down to China's too-thin thigh, clenching whatever's left there and pulling up and forward, and Russia's shuddering hips thrust against China's messily.

"Again," Russia says, low, and China, accordingly, stifles his laughs and whimpers his name, pressing his mouth to Russia's temple, the shell of his ear. Scrambling, Russia paws at China's abdomen, finds his cock and moves his hand along it. China, though, isn't so fortunate as to have a perfectly unreachable fantasy, no blond-haired boys to writhe behind his eyelids, so he finds the pleasure to be had in the press of a body, sloppy desperation, and feels that sensory fragmentation, the edges of climax –

Russia pants, almost heaving, and moves off. China takes a moment to adjust before opening his eyes. Just a few moments more – but it's over now. Russia is kneeling off to the side, silently compartmentalizing. He looks pale and soft now, orange-pink in the lamp light. China feels the rising urge to touch him, to bring him close. It's a powerful desire, so much so that China consciously stills his hand, pressing it against the warm sheets. Spent and half-hollow, Russia is farther away than he has been all night. 

Under the window, the heater thuds metallically, the disembodied sound of gas in the pipes. China finds his slacks and leaves for the well-renowned modern facilities of the bathroom. 

The water is hot and there's no mildew in corners or cracked tile, which is more than he can say for most of Russia's hotels – or his own, for that matter. _To live in the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love –_ he thinks suddenly, inexplicably. From that play with the sword fight and the wordy prince. Well, 'making love' is generous, if not plainly inaccurate. 

Just above the din of the shower, China hears the door shut. He closes his eyes, he bows his head under the trembling arc of water. With a wan smile, he wonders just what – if anything – they've managed to do here, or hoped to do.

**Author's Note:**

> Based on Mao's visit to Russia for Stalin's 70th birthday in December 1949.
> 
> "Wang tóngzhì": Comrade Wang
> 
> "All China wants to do is dredge up Taiwan...": A large point of contention during the trip was the question of Russia's involvement in China's seizure of Taiwan from the Chinese Nationalist Army. Stalin was hesitant to promise any aid, not wanting to give the West a reason to intervene. (Mao, Stalin and the Korean War: Trilateral Communist Relations in the 1950s By Shen Zhihua)


End file.
